


The Spider and the bug

by Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 14:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14082816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds
Summary: Going out as Spider-man whilst he had the flu was never going to end well. Good thing Tony Stark has Peter's back, even if he'll never let him hear the end of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've just been through and edited this, so hopefully I've caught all the typos I missed when I first posted it. I've also written a few other Spider-man fics in a similar style to this one, so please check them out!

Peter loudly blew his nose before pulling his mask back down and preparing to launch himself from the building.  
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Peter?" Karen asked him, "The evidence would suggest that you are suffering from an influenza virus infection. Infection rates are high currently in your neighbourhood." To be honest, Peter too was doubting whether going out was a good idea. But he had work to do.  
"It's just flu Karen. I'm fine. I've got people to save." With that, he fired off a web from his wrist, swinging himself through the air and along the street. 

He had hoped that once he was on the go, gliding through the air, free and able to use his powers to his heart's content, he would start feeling better. Usually he loved the feeling of being Spider-man. But today, every movement seemed to take just that bit more effort. He felt exhausted. Sure, he'd sat through a whole day of school beforehand, but he went out after school every day, and usually felt fine. This damn flu was really sapping at his energy. At one point, when he was making a particularly sudden movement, he almost felt his stomach give way. That was very unusual. He could see how swinging about the city on webs could make some people feel nauseous, but he never normally was.

He was glad when he landed, though he wobbled slightly first as he tried to stand. There was a robbery going on in a bank. He sighed to himself, summoning the effort to jump up onto the wall, and start to slowly crawl his way in on the ceiling, hoping the robbers didn't notice him. He was doing quite well, and was just about to launch a web to grab the nearest robber's gun, when his body betrayed him. He sneezed. 

Everyone in the bank turned to look at him.  
"Hi…" he started, looking slightly awkwardly at them. "Please drop your weapons?" This came out a little more meekly than he intended, more of a question than a demand. He dropped himself down onto the floor, to try and make more of an impressive figure, but messed up the landing slightly, which damaged the effect. He launched his webs and grabbed the gun of the robber stood in front of him. Unfortunately, in his sub-par state, he didn't notice how close one of the other robbers was stood to him. Whilst Peter was distracted, the robber had closed the distance and now was pointing the gun right at the side of his head.  
"Don't move!" he told him, menacingly. Peter very slowly turned his head to face him. Panic started to set in in his befuddled head. Normally he should be able to think he was out of this. But right now, all he could think was "shit" (that and how shit he was feeling in general). 

Before he could stop it, another sneeze burst out of him. It took the robber by surprise. The volume and force of the sneeze, compared to that of an average person was part of that. He stumbled backwards slightly, and his gun somehow slipped from his fingers. Peter's mind was still feverish, and was also shocked about what had just happened, but he managed to clear it enough to coordinate grabbing the gun with his webbing. 

The police had arrived by this point, and started to storm their way into the bank. Rather than offering them some wise-cracks like he usually liked to do, he just dumped the guns into the hands of a nearby officer (who looked slightly bemused, and seemed to struggle to stop his hands from getting stuck to the webbing), and slowly walked out of there.

"That's enough for today," Peter thought to himself. Yes, he'd only been out for a short while, but he'd stopped a robbery. That would have to do for today. The police would handle the rest. He just wanted to go home and have a nap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters might be quite short at the moment, but I'm going to keep writing and posting whilst I'm on a roll...

But before he could go home and rest, he needed to go back to the alley where he left his school stuff and collect it. It was times like this when Peter wondered to himself why he didn't just take his stuff with him. It would probably ruin his superhero look though, going around with a back-pack on. Besides, it probably wouldn't do his secret identity any good; people might recognise his backpack, or worse, he could end up dropping one of his school books with his name on. And sure, he could leave his stuff at home before setting out. But he didn't want Spider-man to be seen crawling around his building too many times. Plus aunt May was sometimes around, and he didn't want her to see him sneaking off as Spider-Man. Sure, she knew all about it now, but they seemed to have reached a form of awkward compromise where she pretended that he only went out as Spider-Man on official missions with Tony. Of course that wasn't true; the local news could tell you that, but it seemed to help her try not to worry about Peter all the time, so they both tried to keep up the pretence.

He half-wondered about walking back to the alley, but as another sneeze escaped his mouth, he was reminded just how much he wanted to get home, and didn't want to waste time walking when he could be swinging back there. He was exhausted by the time he made it back to the alley, and sweat was starting to drip off him. But he was strangely cold too. He shivered slightly. He decided he'd put his normal clothes back on over the Spider-suit for extra warmth. 

He pulled back from the wall he was clinging to slightly, and looked down, trying to see if it was clear below to jump down. But that was a mistake. As he leaned over, his head swam.   
"Urgh… Karen…" he muttered as darkness started clouding in over his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony was in his workshop, tweaking his suit, when F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted him.  
"Sir, we have an alert come through from Spider-Man."  
"Sure, put him on."  
"It's an auto-generated alert from Karen." Tony had to think for a second who Karen was. He still found it weird that Peter had named his suit A.I. Karen. Although, to be fair, it was a bit hypocritical of him to question other people's naming of A.I.s.  
"What's the problem?" He sounded slightly more worried now.  
"Apparently Mister Parker has been feeling a bit under the weather, and now isn't responding." Tony got busy with his screens, bringing up telemetry from Peter's suit. He looked closely at his vitals; they were a little deranged (but not incompatible with what you'd expect with a bad case of the flu). He shut the visor on his suit determinedly, and set off flying out of the building.  
"F.R.I.D.A.Y., set navigation for Peter's location. And patch me through to Karen.

 

Tony found Peter lying on the floor in an alley. He approached him cautiously, concerned.   
"Peter!" he called to him, shaking him on his shoulder. He called again. Peter groaned and made a vague effort to role away from him.   
"No," Peter quietly muttered, "five more minutes." Tony tried again to rouse him, but didn't get much more of a response. The kid was clearly out of it, but at least appeared unharmed from the fall when he passed out. He was visibly feverish though; the suit was made to be sweat-resistant, but moisture was still visible in places, and he appeared to be shivering slightly.

Carefully, Tony scooped him up from the ground into his arms. Peter stirred but didn't wake. What to do with him? Peter would probably prefer if Tony just took him home. He wouldn't want a fuss, and probably be fine once he'd had a chance to sleep it off. But Tony didn't want to risk that. What if he got worse? What if he wasn't fine? He could take him to a hospital, but that might lead to questions. He'd have to get Peter out of the Spider-suit for a start beforehand, and he didn't think getting caught undressing an unconscious teenager in an alleyway would be very good for his career. Plus, even when he got Peter to a hospital, what if Peter's powers complicated things? What if he reacted to the virus different to how most people would? He'd be better off with people who knew about his powers. So that decided it; he'd take him back to the Avengers' base. They had a med-bay there, they'd be able to help Peter. If the situation changed, Tony could always reassess at a later point.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter I'm writing tonight, but hopefully I'll get some more written tomorrow. Please leave any feedback you have about my writing in the comments.

Rhodey spotted Tony land at the base, and a team with a stretcher come out to meet him. He watched as Tony placed Peter carefully down onto the stretcher, and rushed out to see what was happening.  
"What's happened? Is he ok?" Rhodey asked, concerned. He didn't really know Peter that well, but knew Tony was fond of the kid.  
"Hopefully, yeah. We think he's got the flu. He passed out whilst out patrolling." Tony told him, as he walked behind the team wheeling Peter into the building  
"The flu?" Rhodey asked, slightly surprised, taking a step back away from Peter. He was slightly suspicious of high school kids and their bugs. He'd only just got over an awful cold he picked up after going into a school to give a speech the other week.   
"That's apparently what he reckoned it was anyway. I guess we'll know more once we get him to the med-bay."  
"Why did you bring him here? Why not just take him to a normal hospital if it's just the flu?"  
"We don't know how his body will react to it. I wanted to play it safe. Hopefully here, we'll be better able to deal with any surprises. 

Once they'd got Peter settled, and he'd checked he was stable, Tony decided he probably should give Peter's aunt May a call. She'd be getting home from work soon, and might be worried where he was.   
"Hello?"   
"Hi. May? It's Tony Stark…"  
"Mr Stark, hi! Is this about Peter? Is everything ok?"  
"It's nothing to worry about. I'm just ringing to say that Peter's feeling a little under the weather, so I've brought him here to the Avengers' facility…"  
"Under the weather?" she interrupted, with concern in her voice.  
"Probably just the flu. He'll be fine. I just wanted to let you know."  
"Where… how do I get there?"  
"I'll send Happy over to collect you and bring you here if you want? Are you still at work?"  
"What?... Yes, I was just about to leave."  
"Just wait there. Happy will ring you when he's outside. But honestly, there's no need to worry. I'm sure Peter will be fine."

They hung up, and he rang Happy to let him know what was happening. He hoped what he'd just told May was true; that Peter will be fine.


	5. Chapter 5

But when he went back to check on Peter, the medical team were starting to look a bit concerned.  
"His temperature keeps rising and we're having trouble keeping it down. Of course, that might just be normal for him when he's ill, we just don't have the data. We're still waiting on the test results coming back to confirm this is just flu; the clinical picture does correlate with cases of more virulent strains of influenza, but he's mounting one hell of an immune response."  
"Is that bad?"  
"Not necessarily. His body's doing a good job of trying to fight off the virus. It'll probably mean a quick recovery. The only worry is that his body might damage itself, by attacking the virus overzealously."  
"How do we stop that from happening?"  
"We're going to try and dampen down his immune response a bit, and keep trying to keep his temperature down. We'll be monitoring him very carefully. Don't worry, he's in good hands, Mr Stark."  
"Ok. I'll sit with him for a bit until his aunt arrives." The medical team looked between each other slightly awkwardly, as if silently asking each other who was going to say something.  
"Erm…" the doctor who had been speaking previously started, "We were thinking it would be best to keep him quarantined for now, at least until we for sure whether it is influenza…" He tried to think of what to say next carefully; he'd seen before that Tony Stark didn't like being given orders.  
"Ok, fine," Tony agreed, to the relief of the doctor. (A part of Tony was probably also relieved; he felt responsible for the kid, but he wasn't really a bedside vigil kind of guy). "Keep me updated with any changes."

Unsure what to do, he went back to his workshop for a bit. He probably should go meet May when she arrived and fill her in, but he didn't want to be hovering around in the meantime. He decided the most useful thing to do might be to have another look at the recordings from Peter's suit. He started with the vitals; Peter's temperature had been raised slightly when he'd put the suit on, but rose fairly quickly in the short time he had been wearing it. He listened to Peter's discussions with Karen; the AI had warned him he was ill, but he'd still gone out anyway. The kid definitely had a hero complex. Watching how Peter nearly got taken out by one of the bank robbers was scary. Tony saved the clip, planning to use it to illustrate a point when having a word with Peter about being a responsible superhero later. He had to admit though that it was pretty funny when Peter sneezed on the robber. The guy's face was priceless! (Of course, he wouldn't be admitting that to Peter).  
"Mr Stark," F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced into his earpiece, "Mrs Parker is just arriving at the facility."  
"Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y." he replied, heading down to go meet her.


	6. Chapter 6

"Mr Stark, what's going on? Where's Peter? You said he had the flu?"  
"We're just awaiting test results to confirm that, but we think so. I'll take you to him. He's got a pretty high fever at the moment, but we've got a good team looking after him."  
"Is it serious? Is that why you brought him here?"  
"The medical team will be able to give you more information when we get there, but I don't think they think there's too much cause for concern. I mainly just brought him here as a precaution; in case his powers meant his body reacted differently to the virus than would be expected."  
"Is that likely?"  
"To be honest, it's hard to put a figure on it. There's still a lot we don't know about his abilities. But they're monitoring him very carefully, so if anything does happen, we'll know about it."

When they arrived at the med-bay, Tony summoned over one of the doctors.  
"This is May Parker, Peter's aunt. Would you be able to update her on Peter's condition?"  
"Hello Mrs Parker, I'm Dr Treford. As you may have been informed, Peter's suffering from a nasty case of influenza. He's got a pretty high fever, but we're hoping we might have reached the crest of the wave, as we seem to be managing to get it under control. We've just got the results back to confirm it is an influenza infection; it's a strain that's been making the rounds recently, but it appears Peter's got a particularly bad case for someone his age."  
"Why might that be?"  
"We're currently operating under the hypothesis that his advanced healing powers have meant that his immune system has launched a more aggressive attack on the virus than is typical. This means that he's got a worse fever than would be expected, but we're also hoping that his recovery will be quicker than usual too; we're thinking that within a day or two, he may have totally cleared the virus, whereas a normal person would be feeling under the weather for a week or more."  
"Can I see him?" Tony started to tell her about the quarantine, but the doctor interrupted him.  
"Now we know it is definitely just flu, we've relaxed the quarantine we put in place. He's sleeping currently, but you can go sit with him. You'll need to wear a face-mask though, and wash your hands before and after entering. But of course, there's still the risk you could catch the flu from him."  
"I don't care about that. If I catch it, I catch it."

Tony went with her into Peter's room. There were lines into Peter's arms, nasal cannulae delivering oxygen, and various monitors around him. His chest looked to be moving up and down with slightly more effort than usual, but he looked peaceful. May sat down in the chair next to the bed and carefully took her nephew's hand, trying not to knock the sats probe attached to his finger. Tony stood there at her side for a minute or so, resting against the back of the chair, before excusing himself and leaving them in peace.


	7. Chapter 7

It was the crack of dawn, and Rhodey was getting ready to head out for a run, trying to get back into shape after his accident. He went via the med-bay, wanting to just look in on how the kid was doing. Tony really seemed to care about the kid. It was weird to see, but Rhodey was glad too. Peter seemed to be good for his friend.

Just before he reached the room, he suddenly heard various alarms going off. He dashed into Peter's room, followed by some of the medical team, all looking surprised and flustered. What he saw when he entered wasn't what he was expecting. He'd assumed the alarms meant the kid had suddenly gone downhill, but in fact they were probably due to all the monitors suddenly becoming disconnected. The bed was empty, except for the various lines and wires that had been connected to Peter a moment ago. He wondered where kid had gone. Then he looked up.

Peter was crouched upside down on the ceiling, looking awake but flustered. To be honest, the sight reminded Rhodey of a scene from a horror film, and half-expected his head to start turning through 180 degrees towards him.

"Peter, it's ok," he started, trying to reassure him, "You're in the med-bay at the Avengers' facility." Peter still looked scared, but seemed to be taking in what he was saying. Presumably he must have woken up in a strange bed and panicked. Rhodey guessed that Peter's panic response clearly was to stick to the ceiling apparently. Each to their own.  
"Look, can you get down from there?" he asked him, in what was meant to be a calming tone. "Your aunt's around here somewhere." He looked to the doctors, to enquire about the aunt's current whereabouts.  
"She's just popped out. She'll be back in a minute," one of the doctors added. 

Slowly, Peter relaxed and dropped himself back onto the bed, allowing the doctors to reattach some of the monitoring equipment (and inspect the small cuts on his arm from where the cannulae had been ripped out).  
"Colonel Rhodes…?" Peter started, now with a vague sense of recollection of the man stood in front of him. "What happened?" Just as he said that, the door opened, and aunt May entered, beaming on seeing Peter was awake.  
"Peter!" she called happily, dashing towards him, her coffee splashing slightly before she hastily discarded it on the window ledge.  
"I'll let your aunt fill you in," Rhodey told him, exiting the room.


	8. Chapter 8

Rhodey headed down to Tony's workshop, having the feeling his friend had spent the whole night there. He found him dozing slightly in a chair, with a load of tools and one of his helmets half-deconstructed in front of him. Tony jolted awake when he heard the door open.  
"Peter's awake by the way," Rhodey told him.  
"Is he ok?"  
"Seemed like it. He'd attached himself to the ceiling when I went got there. Does he do that a lot? Don't you find it weird how he can just, you know, stick there?"  
"It's just part of his powers," Tony said, slightly absentmindedly. He started brushing himself down, remembering that he often looked slightly worse-for-wear when he'd stayed up all night working on one project or another, and thinking that he should try and make himself look vaguely presentable before he went to see Peter. He wanted to give May the impression he was a responsible mentor, and thought giving Peter a lecture on being a responsible superhero might sound a bit hypocritical if he himself looked like shit.  
"I still find it weird," Rhodey added, mainly to himself. 

Peter had changed out of the medical gown they'd put him in, into a T-shirt and pair of trackies, by the time Tony arrived at his room. He was sat on the bed, eating a bowl of cereal with some ferocity. Nearly all the equipment had been disconnected from him now; clearly the team were satisfied he didn't need it anymore. May was sat in the chair next to him, looking tired but relieved, happily watching her nephew demolish the bowl of cereal. As soon as the door cracked open, Peter looked towards it.  
"Mr Stark! Hi!" he called (quickly swallowing a mouthful of cereal), "Erm… thanks for you know, coming to get me when I was feeling unwell yesterday."  
"I'm glad to see you're looking much better!"  
"Yeah, it seems my flu's all about gone! Spider-powers for the win!"  
"Yes, well, you've been quite lucky. You passed out whilst out being Spider-man. Anything could have happened. You could have been hurt. You could have got somebody hurt. Imagine what could have happened if I hadn't come and found you! Or if someone else had found you!"  
"Yes… well…" Peter started, trying to justify himself, "I was on my way home. I was going to go rest."  
"After you went out, knowing full-well you were ill! I know you meant well, that you just wanted to go out and help people, like you always do, but a good hero knows their own limits, and acts within them. You need to be more careful in future, think things through."  
"Yes, Mr Stark, I will."  
"Good. Now, should I see if I can find you some more cereal, since you seem to have polished off that bowl?"

By lunchtime, the medical team were satisfied enough with their tests that they were happy to let Peter go home.   
"It's like we said," Dr Treford discussed with Tony, "his body reacted harshly to the virus, but burnt it off quickly."  
"What might that mean for the future?"  
"We probably should look into that further. It would be useful to have more data on exactly how his powers affect his body, in case we need to help him again sometime."

By mid-afternoon, Tony was feeling exhausted, so decided to head home. Sure, he had been up most of the night, but he'd gone for days without sleep before. Maybe his age was catching up with him. He decided to head up to bed almost as soon as he got through the door. As he pulled on his pyjamas, he let out a loud sneeze. He sighed.  
"Damn that kid!"


End file.
